Dante Alighieri was born into an old, distinguished but impoverished family in Florence in 1265. In the middle of the road of his life he was forced into exile. He lost everything: his home, his family, his friends, his political standing. What could he do with the rest of his life? He decided to write a poem. For the next twenty years he worked on what became the most widely read poem ever written in Western Civilization: The Divine Comedy.

Dante's Inferno: The Cantos

Canto I. Prologue.

The Dark Wood (La Selva Oscura).
The three Beasts: leopard, lion, wolf.
Dante meets Virgil.

Canto II. Discouragement.

"I am not Aeneas, I am not Paul."
We learn how Beatrice called Virgil.

Canto III. Gate of Hell.

Full of Virgilian echoes: Aeneid Book VI.
The old man in the boat.
The neutrals, Dante's invention.

Canto IV. Limbo.(from Latin for "edge")

The Virtuous Heathens:
Homer, Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, Cicero.

Canto V. Second Circle: Paolo and Francesca.

Lustful, Paolo and Francesca, (lines 88-142),
Reading a book; the kiss; "we read no further."
Dante hears their story and swoons.

Canto VI. The Third Circle. Ciacco.

The Gluttonous, Ciacco of Florence(line 58).
Ciacco the first Florentine Dante meets.
They talk of Florence (60+).

Canto VII. The Fourth Circle.

Hoarders and Spendthrifts.
Attached to earthly possessions.
Fortune (line 68).

Canto VIII. Enter the City of Dis(=Hell).

Filippo Argenti (Florentine).
The violent.

Canto IX. Continue into city of Hell.

Virgil the rationalist falters before evil.
The travelers meet the heretics.

Canto X. The Sixth Circle. Heretics.

Farinata degli Uberti. The great baron.
Florence vs. Siena.
One of greatest figures in the Divine Comedy.

Canto XI. The Seventh Circle.

Virgil explains the plan of Hell (line 16).
Based on Aristotle and Cicero.

Canto XII. The Seventh Circle. Minotaur..

The Violent against others.
Guardians are beasts.
The Minotaur stands for brute force.

Canto XIII. The Seventh Circle:

The Violent against themselves.
Suicides, Piero delle Vigne.

Canto XIV. The Seventh Circle.

The Violent against God: blasphemy.
Capaneus, the old man of Greece.

Canto XV. The Seventh Circle.

The Violent against Nature: sodomites.
Brunetto Latini, important Florentine poet.
(Dante's friend and teacher in Florence).

Canto XVI. The Seventh Circle:

The Violent against Nature.
Three Florentines: Guido Guerra, Aldobrindini and Jacopo Rusticucci. Big discussion of Florence(73).

Canto XVII. Geryon.

The Usurers. Descent to Malebolge.
Malebolge= evil pouches (in the ledges).
Geryon flies them down to Eighth Circle.
(great image, 79+).

Canto XVIII. The Eighth Circle. Fraud.

Cantos XVIII-XXX cover the Eighth Circle.
Fraud, panderers, (great image 28+, Rome).

Canto XIX. The Eighth Circle. Popes.

Fraud in the church, simony.
Dante angry at church corruption.
Sell spiritual riches of Church.
Pope Nicholas III.

Canto XX. The Eighth Circle.

Intellectual Fraud: astrology.
Astrology perverts freedom of Christian.
Denies free will.

Canto XXI. The Eighth Circle.

Fraud in government, "barratry;" dishonesty in public office. A match for simony of Canto XIX for the Church. This was crime Dante was accused of so he gives more space to this (XXI-XXII) totally unique, sharp, nasty, rough, savage satire.

Canto XXII. The Eighth Circle.

Fraud, barratry.
Ciampolo of Navarre.

Canto XXIII. The Eighth Circle.

Fraud, hypocrites,
Fra Catalano of Bologna.
Talk of Florence (line 91+).

Canto XXIV. The Eighth Circle.

A mood of lasitude. Dante tired.
Fraud, thieves, Vanni Fucci.

Canto XXV. The Eighth Circle.

Fraud, thieves, five Florentines.
The serpents.

Canto XXVI. The Eighth Circle. Ulysses.

Fraud, false counselors, Ulysses=Odysseus. One of greatest of all the cantos. Ulysses one of greatest characters of Inferno. Ulysses is only major character in whole of Inferno who is NOT a contemporary of Dante. Clearly he is special. He gets to tell his story without interruption. A mini-epic. Ulysses is a traveler like Dante himself, classical figure famous as traveler.

Canto XXVII.The Eighth Circle, Guido.

Fraud, false counselors, Guido da Montefeltro.
The Guido story should be read together with the Ulysses story of the previous Canto.

Canto XXVIII. The Eighth Circle.

Fraud, false counselors including false religion such as Mohammed and Moslem, the most powerful religious challenge to Christianity in Dante's time.

Canto XXIX. The Eighth Circle.

Fraud, alchemists, falsifiers of elements.

Canto XXX. The Eighth Circle.

Fraud, counterfeiters. Notice to this Florentine a falsifier of coinage is really bad. This reminds us of Florence's pride in its golden coin, the Florin.

Canto XXXI. The Ninth Circle. Treason.

The Giants, bodyguards of Satan, the Towered Castle, the towered structure recalls the great menacing feudal towers of Florence that you saw in our slides including the one right across from his house which was reclaimed from feudal powers to become first home of new democratic government. This towered imagery important.

Canto XXXII. The Ninth Circle. Bocca.

Treason, traitors, Bocca degli Abbati (line 79+), great figure, viewed as supreme traitor to Dante's Florence at Battle of Montaperti, near Siena.

Canto XXXIII. The Ninth Circle. Ugolino.

Treason, Ugolino, another of Dante's greatest most tragic characters, along with Paolo-Francesca, and Ulysses.

Canto XXXIV. The Ninth Circle. Satan.

Treason, Satan, Judas, Brutus. Notice great imagery of freezing Lake of Cocytus, far from life, far from light, far from salvation.

Dante's Purgatorio: The Cantos

Canto I. Prologue.

At the foot of the mountain.
"To travel over better waters,
the little bark of my wit now lifts her sails."
Poetry; the poet;
Our journey and his journey..
A new mood; new light; new music.

Canto II. The Ship of Souls.

Casella's song of love.
The ship coming up the Tiber.
The souls like doves.

Canto III. The Excommunicants.

Dante's shadow;
Virgil's shadow. Where is it?
Manfred, would-be Emperor (line 112).
Dante being rather generous to Manfred.

Canto IV. Begin the Ascent.

Belacqua who was slothful.
Slow to pursue his own salvation.
Indolence and laziness the mood.

Canto V. Penitents at Last Hour.

Those who waited to the last possible minute.
Buonconte talks of Tuscany. The Battle of Campaldino.

Canto VI. The Power of Intercession.

Dante's encounter with Sordello.
Sordello's impassioned lament over the conditions of Italy.
"Italy enslaved; house of misery; ship without a pilot."(line 76)

Canto VII. The Valley of the Princes

Greetings of Virgil and Sordello.
Meeting with the princes.

Canto VIII. The Guardian Angels

Nino Visconti and Conrad Malaspina.

Canto IX. The Gate of Purgatory.

Dante approaches the Gate. Three steps.
The seven p's on his brow.
Peter and the Church and Purgatory.

Canto X. The First Terrace of Purgatory.

Here we begin Purgatory proper.
Here begins cure of roots of sin.
(vs the sins themselves in Inferno)

Canto XI. The First Terrace: Pride

Examples of pride: the Oderisi.
NOTE: Line 94+ interesting in their reference to the painters of the day. "In painting Cimabue thought to hold the field and now Giotto has the cry."

Canto XII. The First Terrace: Pride

Examples of pride: Saul, Holofernes.
The Ashes of Troy (line 61).

Canto XIII. The Second Terrace: Envy

Examples of kindness.
Sapia (line 109).

Canto XIV. The Second Terrace: Envy

Line 16: The Arno. Rises in Falterona.
Lines 40+: Casentino, Arezzo, Florence.
Guido del Duca.

Canto XV. The Third Terrace: Anger

The purgation of blinding anger.
The angel of mercy.

Canto XVI. Third Terrace: Anger

Marco Lombardo
The purgation of anger. But most important in this canto is Marco Lombardo's oration on the dignity of man and on human freedom. This canto is central to the whole scheme of ethics in the Divine Comedy and essential to the two succeeding cantos in which Virgil discusses Love.

Canto XVII. The Third Terrace: Anger

Virgil's Discourse on Love.
This and the next canto contain some of the most important intellectual material for understanding the whole structure of the Divine Comedy. As Virgil explains, the whole of the universe is moved by Love. Love is God's plan. "Neither Creator nor creature was ever without love" (line 91) And thus the whole of Purgatory is organized in relation to the actions of love in our lives. God is love and the whole of his creation moves with and toward Love. Here the most important theologian is Saint Augustine and his Christian interpretation of Plato. These ideas are explicit in the New Testament and most memorable of all is Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians: 13.

Canto XVIII. The Fourth Terrace: Sloth

Continuation of Virgil's Discourse on Love.
Examples of sloth and zeal.
The Abbot of San Zeno.(line 118)

Canto XIX. The Fifth Terrace: Avarice.

Purgation of avarice; more churchmen
Pope Adrian V. The only pope that Dante meets in Purgatory. There are many in Inferno!

Canto XX. The Fifth Terrace: Avarice.

Examples of generosity and of avarice.
The canto full of Frenchmen and reveals Dante's distinct anti-French bias. Hugh Capet and the Capetians.(line 49+)

Canto XXI. The Fifth Terrace: Statius.

In this Canto Dante introduces another guide in the person of Publius Papinius Statius (45-96 AD) who now augments the leadership of Virgil as an example of Christian Rome (as opposed to Virgil's pagan Rome). Statius was author of an epic called The Thebaid which was enormously popular in the Middle Ages. He is not very interesting, but now he tags along. Sometimes you can't even remember that he is there, but he pops up again. He is not one of Dante's great literary achievements.

Canto XXII. The Sixth Terrace: Gluttony.

Statius talks about himself and Virgil.
A reminder of Virgil's famous Fourth Eclogue in which he seems to prophesy the coming of Jesus Christ,(line 70).

Canto XXIII. The Sixth Terrace: Gluttony

Forese Donati.
This encounter with Forese Donati is a very important glimpse into the personal life of Dante in Florence which becomes more interesting later when Dante meets Beatrice and she accuses him of falling into sin. Forese was Dante's best friend and in this their encounter we get the idea that they were pals in the pursuit of vice (line 115). It is ONLY with Forese that Dante talks about Beatrice thus we can all understand that this meeting with Forese is very important. And soon Dante will meet Beatrice herself.

Canto XXIV. The Sixth Terrace: Gluttony

The Dolce Stil Nuovo.
The encounter with Forese Donati continues. Here the two continue to talk about poetry and Florence. The Dolce Stil Nuovo, the Sweet New Style, was the new poetry of Courtly Love of which Dante was a master.

Canto XXV. The Seventh Terrace: Lust.

Here on the Seventh Terrace lust is purged.
Statius delivers a discourse on the soul that sounds a little like a Scholastic philosopher who expounds ideas that are Aristotelian and Thomistic.

Canto XXVI. The Seventh Terrace: Lust.

Here Dante meets individuals guilty of excessive love, i.e.. lust. Among those he encounters are two poets with whom Dante continues the discussion of poetry that began earlier. This canto shows Dante's intense concern with poetry and his own poetic achievements. Guido Guinicelli and Arnaut of Provence.

Canto XXVII. Beyond the Terraces:

And Into the Fire.
Dante's journey up the mountain now takes him into the Fires of Purgation. At line 127 we hear the last speech of Virgil who will soon disappear from the poem.

Canto XXVIII. The Earthly Paradise:

Another Dark Wood.
Dante returns to another dark wood, but this one is welcoming and rich and green and beautiful. This is the original paradise unwounded by Adam and Eve's sin. Here is this Wood Dante will meet Matilda across the cool fresh stream. Matilda will lead him forward to the next revelation.

Canto XXIX. Pageant of Divine Revelation.

Matilda leads Dante to the Pageant that now unfolds as if on a stage across the river. There he sees the great Cart of the Church Triumphant roll into view, accompanied by the parade of Old Testament prophets, New Testament evangelists, and other saints.

Canto XXX. Beatrice

Cantos XXX-XXXI are the great cantos of Beatrice. The cart rolls to a stop and revealed atop the cart is Beatrice. (Canto 30, line 30). And suddenly Dante feels the old love's great power.(line 39). Suddenly he looks and Virgil is gone. He is devastated. Now Beatrice confronts him with his own moment of Judgement.

Canto XXXI. Dante's Confession.

Dante breaks down under the stress of his confrontation with his old love. He collapses in tears and confesses that false pleasures turned his steps away from the good and the true that Beatrice had inspired. Canto 31 is intensely personal, private, confessional. Beatrice takes him: "Hold me. Hold me." And bathes him and refreshes him. Like a mother with a child.

Canto XXXII.Pageant of Divine Revelation:

The Pageant: Law and History.
The cart tied to the tree.
The disasters to the cart (the church).
The Church and the Empire.
Beatrice and the Cart.

Canto XXXIII. Dante Reaches the Summit.

The prophecy of Beatrice. Dante purified. Dante now ready to mount to the stars. Beatrice leads him higher. He would tell us more but . . . oops. . . he runs out of paper!

Dante's Paradiso: The Cantos

Canto I. Appeal to Apollo

"Oh Good Apollo, make me worthy of this last labor." Now Dante ascends from the earth to the spheres of heaven. The Paradiso is the Cantica of Beatrice. The recurring theme is the difficulty of conveying the experience in language. Thus the whole of Paradiso is a continuing essay on poetry itself and on language, memory, and expression. The light of Paradiso is bright full noon after the darkness of Inferno and the promising Dawn of Purgatorio.

Canto II. Sphere of the Moon.

Warning to the Reader: O You who in a little boat have followed behind my ship, that singing makes her way forward, turn back to see your shores again. Beware. You may get lost and then you will be in trouble. These waters have never been sailed before. (These lines remind one of the opening lines of Purgatorio where we encounter another little digression on poetry and the poet: the little boat of my wit.) Beatrice explains the spots of the moon and the order of the universe. Beatrice gazing upward and he is following her.

Canto III. Sphere of the Moon. Piccarda.

The stories of Piccarda Donati and Empress Constance both of whom are taken out of the convent into the real world. Faith inconstant.

Canto IV. Sphere of the Moon. The Soul.

The progress of Dante's mind to God. Beatrice resolves two of Dante's doubts about the free will Plato's ideas about the soul.

Canto V. Sphere of Mercury: Vows.

The stories of Piccarda and Constance have raised the subject of sacred vows and how we are to obey them. Here Beatrice discourses on vows

Canto VI. Sphere of Mercury: Justinian

"I was Caesar and am Justinian." Here we get the only canto in the whole of the Divine Comedy that gives us a single speaker all the way through. This is Justinian's canto as spokesman for the concept of the Holy Roman Empire. Dante chooses Justinian as the embodiment of the one great moment in the history of the empire when the secular and religious arms cooperated as he thought they should do. Here we get some history of the empire and a dissertation on the proper world order. Dante's choice of Justinian as the spokesman for the empire was surely influenced by the fact that he was living in Ravenna, the site of the great Justinian architectural creation of San Vitale, while he was writing the Paradiso.

Canto VII. Sphere of Mercury.

Justinian departs and Beatrice delivers a somewhat Scholastic dissertation on human redemption: the Divine Plan. Divine Justice.

Canto VIII.Sphere of Venus: Chas. Martel.

In the sphere of Venus we encounter stories of love marred by wantonness. But most fascinating about canto VIII is Dante's meeting with Charles Martel, an important figure in Florentine history.

Canto IX. Sphere of Venus: Cunizza, Folco.

Here are stories of love transformed. Dante meets Cunizza, sister of the tyrant ruler of Treviso, Ezzolino, and Folco. Folco delivers a scathing and somewhat un-paradisiacal denunciation of Florence. (Now in his last years, living in Ravenna, Dante seems to become more harsh in his assessment of his beloved Florence.)

Canto X. Sphere of Sun: Thomas Aquinas.
The Theologians (X-XIII)

Remember: for Dante the Sun is another planet, the fourth planet. Here at the beginning of Canto X Dante addresses us directly to lift up our eyes to the beauty of the creation. Now we will meet some of the philosophers who have written on that creation. We meet Thomas Aquinas in
line 99.

Canto XI. Sphere of Sun: Saint Francis

Canto XI is a hymn of praise for Saint Francis of Assisi delivered by the Dominican Thomas Aquinas as in the next canto the Franciscan Bonaventura will praise Saint Dominic.

Canto XII. Sphere of Sun: Saint Dominic.

Saint Bonaventura of equal fame in the world of thirteenth-century Paris theology with Thomas Aquinas, now delivers another hymn of praise, this one for Dominic.

Canto XIII. Sphere of Sun: Prudence.

Saint Thomas Aquinas delivers an oration on the beauty and perfection of God's creation..

Canto XIV. Sphere of Mars: Fortitude
The Warriors. (XIV-XVII)

Now in these cantos of the sphere of Mars we will meet great warriors in the cause of the Lord. And in Canto XIV Solomon delivers a discourse on the resurrection of the body.

Canto XV. Sphere of Mars: Cacciaguida.

In cantos XV-XVII Dante meets his ancestor Cacciaguida and engages in the most intimate dialogue of the whole of the Paradiso. With Cacciaguida, Dante discusses his own family, his own personal story, and most shocking to him, hears Cacciaguida's prophecy about his future (after 1300) in Florence. These three cantos are rich and wonderful and completely human.

Canto XVI. Sphere of Mars: Cacciaguida.

Cacciaguida talks of the great families of Florence and their decline. Here is the ever-present vision of Dante: things used to be better than they are now.

Canto XVII. Sphere of Mars: Cacciaguida.

The most important lines in Canto XVII have to do with Dante's future which his ancestor knows. Lines 46 begins the lamentable prophecy: that Dante will be driven out of Florence.

Canto XVIII. Sphere of Jupiter: Justice
The Rulers of the Earth (XVIII-XX).

In the sphere of the pure, white Jupiter we meet some of the just rulers of the earth: Joshua, Charlemagne, and Robert Guiscard.

Canto XIX. Sphere of Jupiter: The Eagle.

"Before me appeared with open wings the beautiful image" the image of an eagle, the Divine power. The eagle speaks about divine justice.

Canto XX. Sphere of Jupiter: King David.

Dante meets some of the great rulers: King David, Trajan, Constantine.

Canto XXI. Sphere of Saturn: Temperance.
The Contemplatives (XXI-XXII)

Notice that the contemplatives are higher in heaven than the rulers. Thus Dante accepts the Medieval notion that the highest calling is to leave the world and devote oneself to prayer and contemplation. Here he meets Peter Damian who was from Ravenna.

Canto XXII. Sphere of Saturn: Benedict.

Dante is overwhelmed with amazement at the wonders of the heavens and runs to his Beatrice like a child running to his mother. Here Dante meets Saint Benedict, father of Western monasticism. In line 151, Dante gives us one of the great images of the DC: he looks down onto earth and sees us all down here as on a threshing floor, in the midst of the separation of the wheat from the chaff. (Luke 3:18.)

Canto XXIII. Sphere of the Fixed Stars.
The Greatest Saints (XXIII-XXVI).

Now Dante and Beatrice ascend into the sphere of the Fixed Stars where they meet the Greatest Saints who each examine Dante on various aspects of the faith.

Canto XXIV. Sphere of the Fixed Stars.
Saint Peter on Faith..

Peter examines Dante on Faith. The exchange resembles an academic examination in the medieval university.

Canto XXV. Sphere of the Fixed Stars.
Saint James on Hope.

James examines Dante on Hope. Our author opens this canto with a heartfelt hope of his own: that he might return one day to his Florence.

Canto XXVI. Sphere of the Fixed Stars.
Saint John on Love.

John examines Dante on Love. An especially interesting passage is Dante's speculations on the origins of language which begin at line 114.

Canto XXVII. The Crystalline Sphere
Ulysses and the Threshing Floor..

Now the travelers are moving up beyond time and space. Here in the Crystalline Sphere the canto opens with the invocation of the Trinity. Most memorable are the wonderful lines that begin at line 79 when Beatrice invites him to look down on this little earth and he sees the "mad track of Ulysses" and the threshing floor.

Canto XXVIII. The Crystalline Sphere.
The Angelic Orders.

Beatrice explains to Dante the Angelic orders. His material comes from both Old and New Testament sources.

Canto XXIX. The Crystalline Sphere.
The Angelic Orders.

Beatrice continues to explain the functions of the angels and various divine powers.

Canto XXX. The Empyrean.

The name of this the final upper reaches of Heaven comes from Latin signifying pure fire and pure light. Both the ancient classic culture and the Christian used this image of pure fire and pure light to imagine heaven. Beatrice and Dante now ascend into the Empyrean which takes them beyond time and beyond space. Thus Dante must remind us continually that he will be inadequate to the task of describing for us what he saw and experienced. This theme is one of the central themes of the whole of the Paradiso as opposed to the other two Cantica. Here in the Empyrean they see the river of light and the Celestial Rose.

Canto XXXI. The Empyrean.
Goodbye to Beatrice. Hello to Saint Bernard.

In Canto XXXI Beatrice leaves Dante and Saint Bernard of Clairvaux takes over as his new guide. Bernard was the most famous of Medieval mystics and thus the change of guides signals that now at this level of Dante's progress he must become a mere prayerful pilgrim.

Canto XXXII. The Empyrean.

Bernard directs Dante's gaze into the vision of the Celestial Rose where he can see all the saints gathered.

Canto XXXIII. The Beatific Vision.

Now Dante reaches the highest insight and sees the whole of the Beatific Vision in which we see all and understand all of the whole of creation and of all time. And in this supreme moment of insight, he sees the Universe as a Book, "In its depth I saw that it contained, bound by Love in one volume, that which is scattered in the leaves of the universe."(lines 85-87)

Biography

Danteworlds

U Vermont Website

Bibliography at Wikipedia

Dante’s Inferno: A Summary

Dante On Allegory